Daughter of Fortune (48 page)

“Of me?” he asked, coming closer.

“A little. And I—oh, this is silly! What must you
think of me?” she said.

“You still wonder if you belong here,” he said, his
eyes gentle.

“Yes, I do. Are you sure, Diego?” she asked.

He nodded. “Do you know something,
querida?
When I was hiding in Emiliano’s workshop—before you found me—all I
wanted was to see your face again. I had not one other ambition.
Everything I have ever worked for in my life all boiled down to
that. You belong here with me. ”

“You’re sure?” she repeated.

“Listen to me, my beloved. I do not pretend that I
am a good man. You accused me once of cold-bloodedness and you were
right. It is a curse I have, and I share it with my neighbors.”

“Diego
mio
,” she said, her fingers on his
lips.

He kissed them, his eyes closed. “But change has
been forced on me ... on all of us. I would wander as a lost
soul without you, Maria. Marry me.”

She took his hand and walked with him into the
chapel.

They were married in a hurried ceremony at the
altar, Father Farfán’s voice rising and falling in a steady,
reassuring cadence as he united them. He interrupted the flow of
words only long enough to ask Maria her full name and then to ask
Diego if there was a ring.

Diego shook his head. “Not now. Later, perhaps.”

The father continued, blessing their union,
listening to their quiet responses. The chapel was still full of
refugees crowding the benches, supplicating at the altar, crying
and mourning. Maria heard arquebus fire outside the thick-walled
church. She clung tighter to Diego’s hand.

When the ceremony was over, Diego clasped the
Franciscan’s hand. “I wish that I could pay you, Father,” he said,
the words coming hard from him.

“Never mind, my son. This was the most pleasant task
I have performed in days.”

They stood at the chapel door with the Castellanos.
“And now what will you do?” asked Father Farfán.

Diego shrugged. “I suppose I am on guard duty
somewhere tonight. The Castellanos will show me, I am sure.”

The Father shook his head. “No, that would not be
right. Would you abandon your bride so soon?”

Diego blushed and looked at the priest. “I hardly
think I have a choice, Father, in this crowded place.”

“May I offer a solution?”

Diego grinned. “And are you a worker of
miracles?”

The Father sighed and looked around him, the strain
of the day showing on his face in a quick flash. “Only small
miracles, my son. Very small ones. Come with me. Bid your friends
goodnight, if you will.”

Maria knelt and hugged Luz and Catarina. “Stay with
the Castellanos, my young ones. I will be with you in the
morning.”

Luz kissed her, offering no protest, but Catarina
clung to her hand. She stood on tiptoe and as Maria leaned forward,
she whispered, “I am glad it is you, Maria.”

“What do you mean?” Maria whispered back.

“I wondered whom Diego would marry. Luz and I ... we
were sure we would not like her. ”

Diego turned away to hide his smile, while Maria put
her arms around the young girl. “Could you not trust your brother’s
judgment?” Maria asked.

“Sometimes he is so serious!” said Catarina. “We
were afraid he would marry someone serious. But he married you,
Maria, and ....” She paused, then finished in a surge of
feeling. “And you will tell us stories and laugh with us, and love
us, too.”

Maria hugged Catarina. “Always that, Catarina,” she
vowed, shutting her mind resolutely on the scarcity of their
tomorrows, on the dangers that were their only absolute beyond each
sunrise.

Luz came back to tug at her sister. “Come on,
Catarina,” she insisted, “Señora Castellano says they want to be
with each other!”

Diego was unable to smother his laughter. “My
sisters,” he said as they joined the Castellanos, looking back for
another wave and kiss of the hand from Maria.

“Yes, your sisters,” she agreed, not looking him in
the eye. “I love them.”

“And now, you Masferrers,” said Father Farfán, “come
with me. There is no reason for
everyone
to be miserable
tonight.”

He led them back into the chapel and through a side
door by the altar. The passageway was filled with families bedding
down for the night. Maria and Diego stepped carefully around
sleeping forms and household goods. Father Farfán paused before a
closed door and selected a large key from the bunch in his hand. He
opened the door and Diego and Maria followed him in.

“It is only a cubbyhole,” he apologized as he knelt
to light a candle. “I use it for repairing vestments and for
sitting and thinking, when I am tired of Santa Fe. Over here, I
have something else.”

They looked where he pointed. The priest unlocked a
cabinet and drew out a stopper pitcher of water.

“Holy Water,” he said. “I remembered it was there
this afternoon.”

“Father, we could not!” said Diego, his eyes on the
bottle.

“Did not David eat the showbread in the temple?”
replied the priest, unstoppering the bottle and pouring a small
amount of water into a copper basin. “Was his need so much greater
than your own?” Maria went to the priest. “Thank you, Father,” she
said as he handed her a towel and a bit of soap. “Someday ...” she
could not finish her sentence.

“Someday you will help others in need?” he finished
for her. “There is no other payment. But you already know that. I
bid you goodnight, my children, and wish you great joy in each
other. And I had better lock you in. We have become a city of
sleepwalkers.”

As soon as Father Farfán let himself out and turned
the key in the lock, Diego took Maria by the shoulders and pulled
her to him. Her arms went around him and she clung to him in the
silence of the small room. His lips were on her hair, her ears, her
mouth and then in the hollow of her neck. She shivered and kissed
him.

“You know something, Maria?” he said, his eyes
closed.

She leaned her head on his chest, listening to his
racing heart. Then he held her from him and began to undo the
buttons on the front of her dress. She hooked her fingers in his
belt; too shy to look at him.

When her dress was unbuttoned, she pulled away from
Diego’s embrace and went to the copper basin. She took a long
drink, then pulled down her dress and began to wash.

After watching her in silence, Diego rummaged in the
corner where the old vestments hung on pegs. He found a pallet and
unrolled it on the floor. “Narrow,” he commented. He sat down and
took off Emiliano’s moccasins, sighing. “I haven’t had them off in
days. I forgot I had toes.”

She laughed and flicked some water from the basin at
him.

He smiled. “Don’t waste it. Save me some, will you?
Por dios,
you are thin, Maria.”

“Is that a lover’s language?” she teased, drying
herself off.

“No it is a husband’s talk. You’re all eyes and
elbows. People will think I have not been treating you well.”

“And have you?” she asked, pulling her dress up
again over her shoulders.

“No,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the pallet.
“But you do not complain. I think you will make an excellent wife
in the river kingdom. And now, it is my turn.”

He got to his feet and took a long drink from the
bottle of Holy Water.

“Stale. Maria, come scrub my back. Let that be your
first official task as Maria Masferrer.
Dios,
I like the
sound of that. My arm hurts and I cannot reach it.”

She took the damp towel from him, and began
scrubbing his back. When she finished, she put her arms around him,
savoring the warmth of his bare skin. She closed her eyes, thinking
how short their time together might be. Diego pulled her against
his chest, his voice soft.

“Wife, we have each other. No matter what happens we
have tonight.”

He picked her up and carried her to the pallet. As
he took the pins out of her hair, it tumbled down, covering her
shoulders. He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “Someday
when I have the time, I am going to kiss every strand. But I
haven’t time right now, Maria.”

She held out her arms to him and he came to her,
pulling her down beside him on the narrow pallet. Even in his hurry
he was gentle. He helped her out of her dress, running his hands
over her ribs and laughing.

“Are you hungry, Maria?” he asked, his head on her
breasts.

“Starving,” she replied. “My stomach is rumbling.
Cannot you hear it?”

“No, your heart is beating too loud, heart of my
heart. But now, Maria
chiquita
, it is time you were a wife,
my
wife.”

He kissed her, his fingers cradling her head from
the hard pallet. There on the dirt floor behind the chapel he took
her slowly, carefully and honestly. The fears that she could not
get close enough to him were gone now. Maria accepted Diego
willingly, joyfully as husband, lover and friend, her own earthly
Trinity.

They lay together later, arms and legs entwined,
Diego idly running his fingers across her stomach. “Maria, perhaps
we are not as decrepit as we thought.”

“Apparently not,” she murmured, drowsy.

“Oh, love, do not go to sleep yet, not yet. I
realize that what I have done is highly irregular. If things had
been different, I would have come to your hacienda with a whole
chest of beautiful clothing and a wedding dress.” He paused and
lifted her brown serge dress with one bare toe as she giggled. “And
after the wedding you would have paraded around in the different
dresses for the wedding guests. I could have puffed up my
consequence at your display of my wealth.”

She kissed him and his hands were gentle on her
body. “Diego, how you run on.” She twined her fingers in the hair
on his chest and pulled it.

“Ay! I am awake!”

“Well then, tell me, husband ....” She paused. The
word sounded so alien and yet so natural on her lips. “Husband,
what of your meeting with the governor in the chapel? You never
would say, and now I insist.”

“What a shrew you are!”Maria’s hands slid to his
waist and she rested her head on his chest.

The sound of his heartbeat, slower now, was making
her eyes close. “Tell me, husband.”

“I like the way that sounds, wife. And am I a good
husband?”

She kissed his chest. “You do not feed me, I have no
clothes, but I cannot recall a time when I have been more content.
But tell me what I ask.”

He rubbed her arms and yawned. “His fearless
Excellency would have us venture forth tomorrow for one last
sortie. Those are his words. You know I do not talk like that. So
we shall.”

He wrapped his arms around her bare shoulders. “We
cannot stay here. The
acequia
is cut and food is running
out. We will starve to death, one by one, until there is no one to
resist. But Otermin seems to think that if we give them one grand
show, they will allow us to march out.” His voice grew harsh as he
continued. “I’ll be damned if I will stand by and watch you and my
sisters starve to death!”

“Let me ask again,” said Maria, inching closer to
the warmth of her husband, “Do you mean that you are going to march
out of here tomorrow and attack?”

“Yes. Mad, isn’t it? I vow we all thought so,
sitting there in the chapel, listening to our wise leader. But no
one came up with anything better, so there you are.”

She leaned her head on his arm and he kissed her.
“Maria, Maria, skinny, beautiful Maria with the black eye,” he
said. ,

“At least I do not have any teeth gone.”

“It is only one. I’ll never miss it.” He pulled her
closer. “As I see it, wife, we have two choices at the moment. We
can either go to sleep or make love.”

“That’s no choice,” Maria replied, her fingers
smoothing the tangle she had made of her husband’s hair.

“Bravo, wife,” he murmured, his mouth finding hers
again.

Toward dawn Maria slept, an uneasy slumber filled
with dreams. She and Diego’s sisters were running slowly across the
plaza, stumbling over the bodies of the Gutierrez family, while
Cristóbal, swollen to enormous size, chased them. With nightmare
snail’s crawl she reached the palace gates and banged on them until
her knuckles bled, but the governor would only smile and wave. She
banged harder.

Maria sat up, sweating and shivering at the same
time. The room was still dark and cold. Diego was asleep, his hands
relaxed. Still the banging continued. She shook Diego awake.

He woke up quickly, groping for his clothes. “It
must be Father Farfán, Maria. Pull on your dress.”

She slipped into her clothing as her husband pulled
on his breeches and shirt. He hurried to the door and leaned
against it. “Father?” he asked in a soft voice.

The key turned in the lock, and the priest came in.
“It is time, my children. The men are in the chapel for Mass.
Father Asturiano is celebrating it this time, and I am hearing
confession. It is your turn now, Diego. Maria, say goodbye and go
back to Señora Castellano.”

“No,” she said.

“You cannot come with me, Maria,” Diego said gently,
“not this time.” He enveloped her in a strong embrace, then pointed
her toward the door. “I will see you and my sisters before I
go.”

She left the room without a backward glance. The
passageway was still shrouded in gloom, so she stepped carefully,
then opened the door to the chapel.

She stood in the doorway and counted the soldiers
and landowners. Seventy-eight men. Seventy-eight against all those
Indians. She stood rooted to the spot, finally beyond tears.

Some of the men slept, leaning against each other,
while others sat staring into the distance, looking at the foreign
territory that she and her loved ones would always carry with them
now. A few talked quietly among themselves, fathers and sons trying
to say whatever it was fathers and sons would say at a moment like
that. Their dirty, smoke-painted faces were serious, but she could
see no fear, only a certain calmness that held more courage than
brave words. They were desperate men, cornered men, men who would
fight.